“Two brave vil­lagers re­trieved her right leg first. Later they found the rest of her body which had a badly mauled left breast about 500 m away from the scene.”

Insp Mazula said on Sun­day evening the late Ton­goona left home with her friend, Ms Dube to do laun­dry at Ban­gala Dam in the same area.

Ton­goona was in the wa­ter while stand­ing on a rock but her friend used a bucket at the edge of the dam.

Insp Mazula said Ton­goona saw the croc­o­dile, some few me­tres from where she was stand­ing and alerted Ms Dube be­fore say­ing she must ig­nore her state­ment as the an­i­mal had dis­ap­peared.

It is al­leged Ms Dube later heard Ton­goona scream­ing and saw a croc­o­dile drag­ging her into the wa­ter.

Mr Si­bonginkosi Mazwezwe, who works at Ban­gala Dam said Ms Dube tried in vain to scare away the an­i­mal.

He said Ms Dube re­turned to the vil­lage and in­formed two vil­lagers, Mr Garai Mikairi (62) and Mr Runesu Munonyanya (42) who rushed to the scene.

“The two brave vil­lagers wasted no time and got into the wa­ter, pelted the croc­o­dile with stones but it would not let go of its prey. Un­de­terred the an­i­mal fur­ther dragged the body into the wa­ter away from the two.

“The two were forced to aban­don the res­cue mis­sion as it had be­come dark. On Mon­day at around 2AM, Mr Mikairi and Mr Munonyanya re­turned to the dam and man­aged to lo­cate the woman’s right leg be­fore re­triev­ing the whole body whose left breast was dis­fig­ured, some 500m away from the scene,” said Mr Mazwezwe .

A re­port was made at Renco Po­lice Sta­tion and of­fi­cers took the re­mains to Mor­gen­ster Mis­sion Hos­pi­tal for post­mortem.

Some­time in March a fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion turned tragic for a man from Tri­an­gle in Chiredzi when he was at­tacked and killed by a croc­o­dile while check­ing his nets in Mu­tirikwi River. — @wal­terbm­swazie2